Damning verdict for England’s rivers as targets missed post-Brexit

'The government's shambles of an environment plan is exposed in all of its ineptness’

The UK government is failing to put in place EU clean water laws post-Brexit which means England’s rivers are likely to remain in a poor state for years, an environment watchdog has warned.

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has issued a damning verdict for England’s riverways predicting that the aim for all UK rivers to reach good ecological status by 2027 will not be met if the current course continues.

UK regulators have failed to match EU measures to improve the conditions of rivers post-Brexit, which the report said was ‘deeply concerning’. After Brexit the UK was no longer required to match EU regulations and now uses its own watchdog, the OEP.

Only 14% of England’s rivers were classified “good” in 2019, and this number was predicted to drop to 6% if new measures weren’t introduced, the Environment Agency warned at the time.

However the latest OEP report said there had been “little change in recent years” finding that England is failing to put in place adequate protection to clear up pollution and sewage now that it’s not being held to EU standards for waterways.

The new findings predicted under the worst-case assessment that just 21% of surface waters will be in a good ecological state by 2027.

Since Brexit, the UK government has chosen to test water quality every three years rather than annually which was being done before. While campaigners have raised concerns that ministers are planning to assess waterways under a new, undisclosed, framework which it’s feared will not be as rigorous.

The report also found insufficient funding to meet targets and highlighted not enough monitoring of waterways was taking place making it extremely difficult to clean them up.

Contributing LFF Editor Prem Sikka called it “Another Brexit Gift”.

Sikaa said: “England’s rivers to remain stinky because the government failed to replace EU clean water laws. It will cost £51bn to clean up. Water companies dumped sewage, paid dividends. Polluter pays – make companies, their shareholders, execs pay.”

Campaigner Feargal Sharkey said: “With nowhere left to hide govt’s shambles of an environment plan is exposed in all of its ineptness. Even fiddling the numbers wasn’t enough.

“Time for change.”

Founder of the River Action campaign group Charles Watson called the report a “devastating vote of no confidence” in the government’s environmental protection plans, and highlighted that England was “the dirty man of Europe”.

Watson said: “A damning vote of no confidence in ⁦DefraGovUK⁩’s ability to deliver on its legal obligations to bring the majority of our water bodies to good ecological condition by 2027. No plan, No timetable, No funding.”

Another X user wrote: “Brexit means swimming in shit. Not just metaphorically, but literally.”

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward

UK

NHS waiting list analysis shows ‘decade of misery’ under Tories, says union

'The scale of the decline in the last ten years is staggering'

Hannah Davenport 

Yesterday

The Tory Party has been accused of presiding over a ‘decade of misery’ by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) after analysis of NHS waiting lists in England showed just how much they have increased.

New analysis by the nurses’ union showed that the number of patients waiting more than a year for treatment had sky-rocketed from around 700 in 2014, to over 300,000 a decade later.

In A&E, the number of people waiting more than 12 hours rose from 23 in 2014 to over 42,000 in 2024, another startling jump that the RCN said reflects the decline in quality of care for patients and Rishi Sunak’s failure to tackle the waiting list crisis.

The Prime Minister promised to bring down NHS waiting lists, however he was forced to admit in February that he had failed on this pledge.

The latest NHS figures released today showed that the overall number of treatments waiting to be carried out has stayed the same as last month, at just over 7.5 million. This is more than double the number in 2014 when 3 million were waiting.

RCN leader Pat Cullen said the scale of decline over the past decade was “staggering” as she called on the government to address the “chronic” staff shortages in nursing which has contributed to delays in care.

“Patients have endured a decade of growing misery, and they are being failed by the prime minister’s inability to grip this situation.” General Secretary Pat Cullen said.

“No matter how the government tries to cut the figures, one in nine people in England waiting for treatment is shocking.

“In ten years, the numbers on waiting lists have more than doubled while dangerous 12-hour waits in A&E have gone from impacting just a handful of people to becoming the norm for tens of thousands. Whether in emergency departments or at home, there can be little doubt that patients will have died waiting for the government to get its act together.

She added: “The scale of the decline in the last ten years is staggering and the pandemic is not the root cause. Behind these figures are people suffering in pain, many unable to get on with their lives.

“The prime minister must face the truth head on and acknowledge that bringing and keeping waiting lists down requires investment in the nursing workforce.”

(Image credit: Flickr / Creative Commons)

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward

WALES 

Tata steelworkers at Community union vote for strike action over job cuts

Thousands more steelworkers vote for strikes over plans to axe thousands of jobs and Port Talbot furnace closures

Hannah Davenport 

Today
Left Foot Forward

Members of the UK’s largest steelworkers’ union have become the latest Tata steelworkers to vote for industrial action over plans to cut thousands of jobs amid Port Talbot furnace closures.

More than 3,000 members across all Tata Steel UK production sites were balloted for strike action by the trade union Community. It followed plans by Tata to shut both its blast furnaces at Port Talbot in south Wales with plans to axe 2,800 jobs.

According to the union more than 85% of members who were surveyed voted in favour of industrial action. Port Talbot steelworkers have previously warned politicians of “destitution” for the local area if their jobs are not protected.

Tata Steel plans to replace the Port Talbot’s blast furnaces with greener steelmaking and construct an electric furnace in the summer of 2025 with the UK government contributing £500m towards its cost, while Labour has committed £3bn to the UK steel industry.

The company has said it was losing £1m a day under current operations, however it was recently revealed that the owner of Tata Steel UK raked in £3bn in profits last year.

National officer for steel at Community, Alun Davies, said: “Today our members delivered their verdict on Tata Steel’s job cuts plan, and they have voted to demand a better deal for the workforce.

“It should be noted this resounding mandate has been delivered in spite of the company’s bullying and unacceptable threats to slash redundancy payments.

“We will now be consulting our members on next steps, and we urge Tata to reconsider their position and get back around the table to head off a major industrial dispute.”

Around one month ago members of Unite the union voted to take industrial action over the job cuts, with regional secretary for Unite Wales describing the proposals as “devastating industrial vandalism”.

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said that, not since the 1980s have steel workers voted to strike in this way.

Members of the GMB union have also been balloted for industrial action and the trade unions could coordinate action if their members supported this move. Community union said it will be consulting its 3,000 members on next steps.

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward

UK

Tories face ‘extinction’ as Labour’s poll lead surges to 30 points

According to YouGov’s latest weekly tracker, Labour are now on 48% while the Tories have fallen to just 18%.

Basit Mahmood 

Today
Left Foot Forward

The Labour Party’s poll lead over the Tories has surged to 30 points, the highest it has been since the disastrous Liz Truss administration, with Sunak’s party facing the potential of electoral wipeout.

The latest poll lead will cause yet further headache for the Prime Minister, after the Tories were humiliated at the polls last week as they lost nearly half the seats they contested, having endured one of their worst local election results in a decade in the last big test of public opinion before a general election.

According to YouGov’s latest weekly tracker, Labour are now on 48% while the Tories have fallen to just 18%.

YouGov stated: “This means that for the second week in a row the Conservatives are on their lowest vote share of this Parliament – although with Labour’s vote share increasing they are now farther behind their main rivals than they have been since Liz Truss’s brief premiership.”

The Lib Dems meanwhile are on 9%, the Greens 7% and the SNP 3%.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

NDP leader slams Liberals for giving nearly $26M to Costco, Loblaw in recent years

The Canadian Press
Wed, May 8, 2024 



OTTAWA — NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is slamming the federal Liberals for giving nearly $26 million to Costco and Loblaw for energy-efficient appliances.

The money came from the Liberal government's low-carbon economy fund, which is meant to support projects that will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

In 2019, the Liberals faced heat from Conservatives after the government announced it was giving up to $12 million to Loblaw for energy-efficient refrigerators and freezers at 370 of its stores.


Newly released data from Environment and Climate Change Canada show Costco was also given more than $15 million for efforts to reduce emissions, including new fridges.

Loblaw was ultimately given more than $10 million.

The payments were made to the two grocery chains between 2019 and 2023.

While people are deciding what they can afford in grocery aisles the Liberals are deciding how many millions of dollars to hand out to grocery giants, Singh said Wednesday.

"Just stop giving millions of dollars of our public money to highly profitable companies," he said.

"Stop giving million of dollars to a for-profit corporation instead of helping people who are struggling to afford food."

The Opposition Conservatives accused Singh of faking outrage over the issue.

The party argued that New Democrats are supporting subsidies going to corporations because they continue to prop up the minority Liberal government through a political pact.

"It's shocking albeit unsurprising that Jagmeet Singh, the junior coalition partner in Justin Trudeau’s costly Liberal-NDP majority government, provided tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to massive grocery chains that are making billions off Canadians while they are struggling to put food on the table," said Sebastian Skamski, a spokesperson for Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Facing questions in the House of Commons over the issue, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lauded government initiatives that he said will help Canadians with affordability, including the national food lunch program announced in this year's federal budget.

He also pointed to what the Liberals branded a "grocery rebate," a doubling of the GST tax credit for low-income families delivered last year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2024.

Mickey Djuric, The Canadian Press

Reports mount of mass graves at Gaza hospitals, some bodies found ‘without heads’

Nick Robertson
Wed, May 8, 2024 

A third mass grave was discovered Wednesday at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza’s media office announced, including some containing bodies without heads, raising concerns of potential war crimes after Israeli military sieges on the territory’s hospitals.

The new discovery raises the total to seven mass grave sites between three Gaza hospitals, containing the bodies of about 520 men, women and children.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the crimes of genocide and the continuous killing committed by the occupation army against our Palestinian people,” the media office said. “We hold the US administration, the international community and the occupation fully responsible for these mass graves and this blatant aggression.”

The United Nations called for an investigation late last month after the first mass graves were discovered at Al-Shifa, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

The mass graves contained some people stripped naked with their hands tied, further raising concerns over potential war crimes, the U.N. said, describing the bodies as “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste.”

U.N. human rights experts said in a report Monday they were “horrified” over the reports, adding that many of the bodies found were “reportedly showing signs of torture and summary executions, and potential instances of people buried alive.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel called the reports of mass graves “incredibly troubling” late last month and said the Biden administration has questioned the Israeli government about them.

The Israeli military confirmed the discovery of mass graves late last month, saying its forces previously exhumed bodies buried at the sites in search of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the conflict.

Israeli forces besieged the hospitals for days earlier this year, claiming Hamas militants were inside among civilians. The claims could not be independently verified.

The discovery comes as the Israeli military begins a push into Rafah, capturing the border crossing between the city and Egypt on Tuesday. The Biden administration has strongly urged the Israeli government not to move into Rafah, citing the need to limit civilian casualties in the conflict.

The U.N. human rights experts said in the report that the Israel-Hamas war has been especially dangerous for women and children, with about 14,500 of the nearly 35,000 Palestinians killed in the war children and another 9,000 of them women.

About three-quarters of the estimated 75,000 injured are women, the experts said. The group also denounced the Israeli government for a lack of a proper investigation regarding repeated reports of systemic sexual assault against Palestinian women in Israeli custody.

“We are appalled that women are being targeted by Israel with such vicious, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, seemingly sparing no means to destroy their lives and deny them their fundamental human rights,” they said.

The U.N. has been one of the loudest voices in urging a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas said it had accepted an Egyptian and Qatari-negotiated cease-fire agreement Tuesday, though Israeli leaders have rejected the deal.

The Hill has reached out to the Israeli military and State Department comment.

Russia Victory Day parade:

 Only one tank on display as Vladimir Putin says country is going through 'difficult period'

Sky News
Updated Thu, May 9, 2024 



Russia only had one tank on display during its Victory Day parade this year.

Every year, Moscow wraps itself in patriotic pageantry for Victory Day, a celebration of its victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Today marks the 79th anniversary and Mr Putin addressed the parade in the Red Square, talking up his country's military capabilities in a speech aimed as much at a foreign audience as a domestic one.


Vladimir Putin used his Victory Day speech this year to try and warn Russia's combat forces were "always ready" but admitted the country was going through a "difficult period".

In the parade in Moscow, only one tank was present throughout the entire display - as the country continues to dedicate considerable firepower and resources to its war in Ukraine.

The Second World War T34 tank was the only one present - as it was last year too.

Back in the delayed 2020 parade there were reportedly over 20 tanks present, compared to just one in 2023 and one in 2024.

Other armoured vehicles were pictured as thousands of servicemen marched along the parade.

During this year's speech, Mr Putin admitted that Russia was going through a "difficult period" as the "future of the motherland depends on us".

"Today on Victory Day we are conscious of that even more acutely," he said before warning: "Our strategic forces are always combat ready."

The leader of the Kremlin also said Russia's nuclear forces were always at combat readiness, as he addressed massed ranks of Russian servicemen.

Mr Putin, who this week began his fifth term in office, said Russia would do everything it could to avoid global confrontation, but it would not allow anyone to threaten it.

He also used the speech to send a message to the Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, trying to bolster their morale as the war continues to drag on.

He finished on: "For Russia! For victory! Hurrah!" as thousands of soldiers cheered in return.

Earlier this year, Russia began refitting old tanks after losing 3,000 while fighting in Ukraine, according to a leading research centre.

Moscow lost more than its entire pre-invasion active inventory of tanks in its war with Ukraine, but has enough lower-quality armoured vehicles in storage for years of replacements, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said.

But even after such losses, the IISS said Russia still had about twice as many available for combat as Ukraine.

Since coming to power, Mr Putin has made 9 May an important part of his political agenda, featuring displays of military might.

Columns of military vehicles and missiles roll across Red Square every year and squadrons of fighter jets roar overhead as medal-bedecked veterans join him to review the parade.

Many wear the black-and-orange St George's ribbon that is traditionally associated with Victory Day.


Putin’s victory parade a sign of Russia’s ‘degraded’ armoured supplies

James Rothwell
Thu, May 9, 2024 

A solitary Soviet tank led Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow as soldiers patrolled with anti-drone guns amid fears of Ukrainian attacks.

The Soviet T-34 was the only Russian tank passing through the streets, marking victory over Nazi Germany 79 years ago, as was the case last year.

Analysts said it was a further sign that Russian armoured supplies have been severely degraded since the start of the war. At least 20 tanks took part in the pre-war 2020 victory parade.

However, the parade featured a number of foreign tanks apparently captured from Ukrainian forces, with some bearing British, American and Czech flags.

Putin pictured at a reception for heads of state after the Victory Day parade in Moscow - Mikhail Metzel/Shutterstock

The solitary Soviet tank was also a feature of last year's parade - Sefa Karacan/Anadolu

Some soldiers taking part in the parade were carrying devices that appeared to be handheld drone signal jammers, potentially an attempt to ward off any attacks by Ukranian UAVs.

Ukraine’s drone fleet has proven capable of striking targets deep inside Russia, including Moscow itself.

Sitting in the front row along with Putin were a number of his close allies, including Serdar Berdimuhamedov, the president of Turkmenistan and Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus. Mr Lukashenko was joined by his white Pomeranian, Umka, named after a Soviet poem.

The leaders of Cuba, Laos and Guinea-Bissau also turned up – but not Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s prime minister, who snubbed the event, though he was in Moscow on Wednesday evening for a regional summit.

There was an unseasonable flurry of spring snow during the parade, adding a chilly atmosphere to an event shunned by Western leaders since the February 2022 invasion.

In sub-zero temperatures, a unit of female soldiers were dressed in white skirts, gold belts and black boots. Unusually for military uniforms, they wore their skirts several inches above the knee.

The soldiers gave beaming salutes to the Russian president as they marched through Moscow.

Troops from the Central African Republic, where a large presence of Wagner mercenaries is building up Moscow’s influence, also took part in the parade – the second since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The CAR troops wore red berets and white boots, marching past in two six-man columns.

The Wagner group has been expanding its presence across the African continent where it is accused of committing human rights abuses. Its most recent deployments have focused on Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, three states which have also recently seen military coups.

In a speech to the lines of soldiers and dignitaries, Putin said that the “future of the motherland depends on us2.

Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, salutes soliders at the parade - Alexander Nemenov/AFP

Despite the wintry spring weather in Moscow, this unit wore skirts above the knee - Maxim Shipenkov/Shutterstock

“Today on Victory Day we are conscious of that even more acutely,” he added before making a threat about nuclear weapons.

“Our strategic forces are always combat ready,” he said, referring to Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

The Kremlin is planning to hold weapons tests simulating the deployment of tactical, short-range nuclear weapons in southern Russia and Putin addressed concerns over these tests in comments to state broadcasters after the Victory Day parade.

“There is nothing unusual here, this is planned work,” Putin said. “It is training.”

The Russian president ended his Victory Day speech with the clarion call, “For Russia! For victory! Hurrah”, prompting cheers from thousands of soldiers.

Putin watched the parade sitting with military top brass - Sergei Karpukhin/AFP

Putin included a brief reference to the war in Ukraine, in which he characterised those fighting there as “heroes”, comparing them to World War Two veterans. Around 27 million Soviet soldiers are said to have been killed in World War Two, though experts believe the true figure could be much higher.

Later in his address, Putin said he would not allow “anyone” to threaten Russia, in a clear reference to the West, though he stopped short of the rhetoric of nuclear Armageddon he has used on other occasions since the start of the war.

He said: “Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash. But at the same time we will not allow anyone to threaten us. Our strategic forces are always in a state of combat readiness.”

OUR UKRAINE/RUSSIA WAR COVERAGE

Russia celebrates victory in World War II as Putin accuses the West of fueling global conflicts

PHOTO ESSAY

Associated Press
Updated Thu, May 9, 2024 



1 / 23
APTOPIX Russia Victory Day Parade
Russian servicemen march during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 9, 2024, marking the 79th anniversary of the end of World War II. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Thursday wrapped itself in patriotic pageantry for Victory Day, as President Vladimir Putin celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II by hailing his forces fighting in Ukraine and blasting the West for fueling conflicts around the world.

Even though few veterans of what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War are still alive 79 years after Berlin fell to the Red Army, the victory remains the most important and widely revered symbol of Russia’s prowess and a key element of national identity.

Putin has turned Victory Day — the country's most important secular holiday — into a pillar of his nearly quarter-century in power and a justification of his military action in Ukraine.

Two days after beginning his fifth term in office, he led the festivities across Russia that recall the nation's wartime sacrifice.

“Victory Day unites all generations,” Putin said in a speech in Red Square that came on the coldest May 9 in decades amid some snow flurries. “We are going forward relying on our centuries-old traditions and feel confident that together we will ensure a free and secure future of Russia."

As battalions marched by and military hardware — both old and new — rumbled over the cobblestones, the sky cleared briefly to allow a flyby of warplanes, some of which trailed smoke in the white, red and blue of the Russian flag.

Putin hailed the troops fighting in Ukraine as “our heroes” for their courage, resilience and self-denial, adding that “all of Russia is with you.”

He accused the West of “fueling regional conflicts, inter-ethnic and inter-religious strife and trying to contain sovereign and independent centers of global development.”

With tensions with Washington over Ukraine soaring to their highest level since the Cold War, Putin issued another stark reminder of Moscow's nuclear might.

“Russia will do everything to prevent global confrontation, but will not allow anyone to threaten us,” he said. “Our strategic forces are in combat readiness.”

Nuclear-capable Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles were pulled across Red Square, underscoring his message.

The Soviet Union lost about 27 million people in World War II, an estimate that many historians consider conservative, scarring virtually every family.

Nazi troops overran much of the western Soviet Union when they invaded in June 1941, before being driven back all the way to Berlin, where the USSR's hammer and sickle flag was raised above the ruined capital. The U.S., U.K, France and other allies mark the end of the war in Europe on May 8.

The immense suffering and sacrifice in cities like Stalingrad, Kursk and Putin's native Leningrad — now St. Petersburg — still serve as a powerful symbol of the country's ability to prevail against seemingly overwhelming challenges.

Since coming to power on the last day of 1999, Putin has made May 9 an important part of his political agenda, featuring missiles, tanks and fighter jets. Medal-bedecked veterans joined him Thursday to review the parade, and many — including the president — wore the black-and-orange St. George’s ribbon that is traditionally associated with Victory Day.

About 9,000 troops, including about 1,000 who fought in Ukraine, took part in Thursday's parade.

Although the U.S. and U.K. ambassadors did not attend, Putin was joined by other dignitaries and presidents of several former Soviet nations along with a few other Moscow allies, including the leaders of Cuba, Guinea-Bissau and Laos.

In his speech, he accused the West of “revanchism … hypocrisy and lies” in seeking to play down the Soviet role in defeating Nazi Germany.

Putin described Victory Day as “very emotional and poignant.”

“Every family is honoring its heroes, looking at pictures with dear faces and remembering their relatives and how they fought,” he said.

Putin, 71, talks frequently about his family history, sharing memories of his father, who fought on the front during the Nazi siege of the city and was badly wounded.

As Putin tells it, his father, also named Vladimir, came home from a military hospital during the war to see workers trying to take away his wife, Maria, who had been declared dead of starvation. But the elder Putin did not believe she had died — saying she had only lost consciousness, weak with hunger. Their first child, Viktor, died during the siege when he was 3, one of more than 1 million Leningrad residents who died in the 872-day blockade, most of them from starvation.

For several years, Putin carried a photo of his father in Victory Day marches — as did others honoring relatives who were war veterans — in what was called the “Immortal Regiment.”

Those demonstrations were suspended during the coronavirus pandemic and then again amid security concerns after the start of the fighting in Ukraine.

As part of his efforts to burnish the Soviet legacy and trample on any attempts to question it, Russia has introduced laws that criminalized the “rehabilitation of Nazism” that include punishing the “desecration” of memorials or challenging Kremlin versions of World War II history.

When he sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin evoked World War II in seeking to justify his actions that Kyiv and its Western allies denounced as an unprovoked war of aggression. Putin cited the “denazification” of Ukraine as a main goal of Moscow, falsely describing the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, as neo-Nazis.

Putin tried to cast Ukraine’s veneration of some of its nationalist leaders who cooperated with the Nazis in World War II as a sign of Kyiv’s purported Nazi sympathies. He regularly made unfounded references to Ukrainian nationalist figures such as Stepan Bandera, who was killed by a Soviet spy in Munich in 1959, as an underlying justification for the Russian military action in Ukraine.

Many observers see Putin’s focus on World War II as part of his efforts to revive the USSR’s clout and prestige and his reliance on Soviet practices.

“It’s the continuous self-identification with the USSR as the victor of Nazism and the lack of any other strong legitimacy that forced the Kremlin to declare ‘denazification’ as the goal of the war,” Nikolay Epplee said in a commentary for Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

The Russian leadership, he said, has “locked itself up in a worldview limited by the Soviet past.”


Putin warns of global crash at celebration of Russia's WWII Victory Day

France 24 Videos
Thu, May 9, 2024

Russia on Thursday wrapped itself in patriotic pageantry for Victory Day, as President Vladimir Putin celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II by hailing his forces fighting in Ukraine and blasting the West for fueling conflicts around the world. Story by Eliza Herbert.

Putin watches Russian military parade featuring a solitary, Soviet-era tank

Andrew Roth
Thu, May 9, 2024 

A solitary, symbolic tank has featured in Russia’s annual 9 May military parade for the second year in a row as the country was forced to pare down its normal display of military might during a full-scale war in which it has suffered unprecedented losses over the last two years.

The single tank to roll across Red Square as Vladimir Putin reviewed about 9,000 troops was a second world war-era T-34 carrying the banner that the Soviet Union used when it defeated Nazi Germany alongside other allies. The tank has gained iconic status, but is not in combat use and is instead a token of those that used to be part of the 9 May Victory Day celebrations.

It is just one way in which the largest land war in Europe since the second world war has affected Russia’s main military and political celebration. Photographs from Red Square also showed patrolmen carrying anti-drone rifles to guard against sabotage attacks that have become a concern due to the proliferation of drones on the battlefield – and increasingly at military and energy sites inside Russia.

During a separate meeting with Russian commanders fighting in Ukraine, Putin was asked about the possibility of expediting the construction of advanced drones like those used by Ukraine.

“We know how difficult it is for our fighters who are faced with the fact that enemy drones are flying overhead like flies – all this is known,” Putin told the commander. “We are working on this, and I am sure there will be a result.

Oryx, the open-source intelligence defence analysis website, estimates the Russian army has lost at least 3,000 tanks in the last two years, including 2,000 destroyed and another 514 captured by Ukraine. Those are of an estimated 15,724 lost armoured vehicles, including 11,202 that have been destroyed. The actual number is thought to be even higher.

Russia’s parade included several dozens of vehicles including BTR-82A armoured personnel carriers, several types of armoured vehicles, an armoured ambulance and the Yars mobile strategic missile systems, which can carry intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

Putin announced on Thursday that the Russian and Belarusian defence ministries had begun preparations for joint drills on the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons. The Kremlin has called it a response to threats by the west, including Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to rule out sending French troops to fight in Ukraine.

Putin issued a familiar threat: “Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash, but at the same time we will not allow anyone to threaten us,” he said. “Our strategic [nuclear] forces are always on alert.”

PHOTO ESSAY 

A hiker discovered bones, weapons, and money on a thawing glacier. It turned out to be a 400-year-old mystery.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Updated Fri, May 10, 2024 

BUSINESS INSIDER 

A hiker discovered bones, weapons, and money on a thawing glacier. It turned out to be a 400-year-old mystery.


A hiker discovered the 400-year-old remains of a wealthy man on a glacier in the Swiss Alps.


Melting ice revealed the mysterious man had traveled with many coins, weapons, and possibly mules.


The discovery points to an ancient economy supported by dangerous routes through high mountain passes.

The Theodul Glacier was expanding when a mysterious man in thin leather shoes trekked across its surface about 400 years ago.

This field of ice high in the Alps, below the range's iconic and imposing Matterhorn, formed a treacherous pass between what's now Switzerland and Italy. It was the middle of the Little Ice Age, and more ice was forming along its edges every year.

That had changed by 1984. The glacier was retreating, and the leather-shoed man was gradually emerging from the ice into the sun when a hiker stumbled upon his remains.


Slowly, as archaeologists returned to the site through the 1980s and early '90s, the melting glacier revealed a skull with auburn hair clinging to it, several knives, nearly 200 coins, jewelry, glass buttons, bits of silk clothing, a shaving razor, a dagger, a sword, and a pistol, all scattered across the area.

A selection of items recovered from the site where the wealthy traveler was frozen.© Valais History Museum, Sion; Michel Martinez

These items date to about 1600 AD. The remains of two mules were also discovered nearby, though it's unclear whether they belonged to the man.

At first, archaeologists thought the well-armed man was a mercenary. Upon further inspection, though, that didn't make sense.


The mystery man's sword was too fancy for a soldier.© Valais History Museum, Sion; Michel Martinez

"They're not combat weapons. These are fencing weapons. These are ceremonial weapons that the rich had on them," said Pierre-Yves Nicod, a curator at the Valais History Museum in the Swiss Alps. Business Insider spoke with Nicod in French and translated his words into English.

"And then the clothes are not combat clothes," he added. "They are also the clothes of a wealthy person, of a gentleman."

The man's bones showed no signs of trauma, and he clearly wasn't robbed, so archaeologists believe he must have died by accident. Perhaps he fell into a crevasse or faced an unfortunate change in weather.


Archaeologists think the wealthy traveler may have died falling into a crevasse.©Musées cantonaux du Valais, Sion, Ambroise Héritier

What was a rich man doing up there on the snow and ice in the first place?

Clues point to an answer: This man may have been part of an ancient economy that spread across the peaks of the Alps. He's a snapshot archaeologists wouldn't have if the mountains weren't changing so drastically.

You see, the mysterious man, his belongings, and the mules were frozen deep in the ice for hundreds of years. Then humans started burning coal, oil, and gas for energy.
How the climate crisis reveals ancient artifacts

Nicod shows off an ancient bow discovered on a glacier.Morgan McFall-Johnsen

For about two centuries now, our use of fossil fuels has been releasing greenhouse gases into the air, mainly carbon dioxide and methane.

As a result, the atmosphere is holding in more heat from the sun, raising the planet's average temperature and causing glaciers such as Theodul to melt away.

Archaeologists uncover mule bones on the Theodul Glacier in Switzerland, near Zermatt.© Sophie Providoli

Receding ice across the planet has revealed mummified mammoths, ice-age squirrels, a 46,000-year-old roundworm that came back to life, and ancient human artifacts such as skis and arrows.

The new scientific field of glacial archaeology thrives in the Alps. For about four decades, archaeologists have been trekking across the glaciers of Switzerland and Italy, retrieving artifacts that are thawing into view.

The problem is that these artifacts aren't surfacing within ancient buried towns or temples.

The Theodul traveler was carrying this locket among other bits of jewelry and pendants.Morgan McFall-Johnsen

"It's one of the difficulties of glacial archaeology that we find these objects in the ice, and therefore out of all archaeological context," Nicod said.

In short, it's often hard to know what exactly you've found.
A clue in an old illustration

Though the wealthy traveler's remains surfaced decades ago, archaeologists haven't really understood him until recently.

The traveler's pistol, made of wood and iron, was about a foot long.© Valais History Museum, Sion; Michel Martinez

He wasn't a soldier for hire, after all, a 2015 paper found. He carried a silver pendant engraved with a cross and anointed with wax, perhaps from a religious candle.

Fragments of wool and some silk indicate the fine clothes he wore. His weapons were all manufactured in present-day Germany. His coins were mostly minted in Northern Italy.

Nicod with the traveler's pendant engraved with a cross.Morgan McFall-Johnsen

In a 2022 report, Nicod and his colleague Philippe Curdy pointed to an illustration from 1643 showing a caravan of merchants ascending to an Alps mountain pass.

"In the background, there are the mountains and then a merchant with all these loads who has his mules, who's climbing up to the peaks," Nicod said.

The man in the illustration is just like the Theodul traveler. In fact, Nicod added, "he has the same type of clothes with the same type of buttons and the same sword."

This small iron knife with a wooden handle was among the Theodul man's belongings.© Valais History Museum, Sion; Michel Martinez

The wealthy man in the glacier was a merchant, they believe, representing a remarkable economy that has long persisted between towns separated by 15,000-foot peaks. Throughout the Alps, from ancient times into the modern period, people have braved frozen mountain passes to hawk their wares.

Even at the end of summer, large glaciers adorn the high passes of the Alps in the Valais region of Switzerland.Morgan McFall-Johnsen

"We see that the passage over the glacier was used all the time — Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman time," Romain Andenmatten, a local archaeologist, told BI. "The simplest way is to go over the glacier."

Romain Andenmatten with a horseshoe found on a melting glacier.Morgan McFall-Johnsen

The Theodul Pass was a common route from the Valais region of modern-day Switzerland to the Aosta Valley of modern-day Italy.

Today, it's a ski slope and occasional archaeological site.
Not everything in the ice is archaeology

Carefully cushioned in custom-cut foam inside a plastic storage bin, the ancient traveler's belongings emit the faint smell of rot, of decaying wood and leather.

The Theodul traveler's knives, razor, and various appendages for attaching accessories to his clothes are carefully stored in the Valais History Museum archives.Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Organic materials such as these must be retrieved quickly once they're exposed on the ice. Lying in a melty puddle under direct sunlight, they can decompose in just a couple of years. Even dried out and stored carefully indoors, the putrid scent gives away their age.

"It smells like the past," Nicod said. "This isn't too bad."

The melting ice yields fouler-smelling findings, including the belongings of a couple who disappeared in the 1940s, Nicod said. Glacier hikers have discovered the bodies of people who went missing still more recently. Sometimes the findings themselves are dangerous. Nicod said people had found undetonated bombs on the ice.

It's not just the Alps. Across the planet, the shifting environments caused by the climate crisis are revealing other terrors that were once buried deep.

Thawing permafrost in Russia released anthrax from a once frozen reindeer carcass, causing a deadly outbreak in 2016.

Droughts are withering rivers and reservoirs so much that their receding banks have unveiled shipwrecks, human remains, Spain's very own Stonehenge, and a couple of formerly submerged villages.


The top image shows an 11th-century Romanesque church partially exposed in a reservoir in Vilanova de Sau, Spain. The bottom image shows the same spot five months later.AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

Erosion from rising sea levels has exposed Indigenous burial grounds in Florida.
Searching for the next Iceman

Some tragedies melting out of the ice are such ancient history that they only evoke wonder — such as Ötzi the Iceman, one of the most significant archaeological finds ever.

Two mountaineers with Ötzi, Europe's oldest natural human mummy, in the Otztal Alps between Austria and Italy.Paul HANNY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Like the wealthy traveler of Theodul, Ötzi was discovered by a hiker. He had surfaced on a melting glacier on the other side of the Alps, on the border of Italy and Austria, in 1991.

The ice had kept Ötzi mummified since his death in about 3300 BC — he's older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. His impeccably preserved body offers an otherwise impossible glimpse into Neolithic life, everything from his male-pattern balding to his hand-poke tattoos and meaty diet.

Andenmatten is hopeful that the glaciers dwindling away on the Swiss side of the Alps will yield the next Ötzi.

Andenmatten coming out of a freezer where artifacts are stored in the basement of the Valais History Museum archives.Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Archaeologists have a unique window into the sheer breadth of humans' footprints on our environments — both the wonder and the terror of our capabilities over the ages. As human-caused climate change devastates mountain glaciers, archaeologists discover more high-altitude feats of ancient human history.

Andenmatten and his colleagues go searching for artifacts in August and September, when the glacier is meltiest and most likely to reveal objects. But as temperatures rise, the season of ice melt expands and so does their archaeological season.

"The good time slot is every year bigger," Andenmatten said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Tired of Canada’s rising Islamophobia, this Toronto family is leaving the country

"It’s no longer liveable or a desirable place to be, at least not like it used to be," the popular Salehs of YouTube say.

Sadaf Ahsan
·Contributor, Yahoo News Canada
Fri, May 10, 2024 

Sana and Will Saleh are planning to move their family from Canada to Malaysia in the fall, citing rising Islamophobia.


For Toronto couple Sana and Will Saleh, the itch to move out of Canada with their three young children somewhere all the way across the world has been growing over the years. But it's become impossible to ignore since the latest Israel-Palestine conflict began in October 2023.

The couple, who are Muslim, have been victims of Islamophobia before, but they say it has only gotten worse in the past seven months. Explaining the moment they knew they had to leave, Sana recalls a November incident: “We were on the way with our young children to a Palestine protest, and an older white woman walked past us and said, ‘You are all terrorists!’ Our kids took notice and we had to explain to them that she did not know any better, and we were simply protesting for human rights, [which] is something they should take pride in.”

“Canada has a serious underlying racism problem,” says Will, adding that they officially decided to make the move in November, just after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reaffirmed Canada's longstanding support for Israel. “That is when we looked at each other and said, ‘We need to go.’ Within a few months, we were all booked and ready to leave. It was the last straw for us.”
Canadian family has eyes of Malaysia. Here's why

In hopes of finding a more welcoming new home, in February, the Salehs embarked on what they call a “mini hijrah” (an Arabic word for migration, often for one’s faith) to Malaysia for several months after brainstorming different options. They connected with the Southeast Asian country for several reasons: the beautiful weather, its hybrid of cultures, and the simple fact that Malaysia’s official religion is Islam, and a majority 60 per cent of its population is Muslim.

While that certainly doesn’t mean the country is devoid of Islamophobia or racism, and the Salehs don’t have family there, they know their odds of a warm welcome are better. They plan to make their big move to Kuala Lumpur this fall.

“We also love the fact that living there is affordable and there is so much, including water parks, theme parks, stunning beaches, pristine malls,” Sana says. “We love the fact that there is always something to do."

It's also "very pro-Palestine," they add, saying it's important for them to be around other people who share their politics.

In November, Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim spoke out in favour of Palestine, announcing that all Malaysians should “unanimously back” the country. He’s been a staunch supporter going back to his 20s. Historically, Malaysia’s support for Palestine has been bipartisan.

The Salehs' hope, they say, is to raise their children — Aaminah, nine; Zaynab, seven; and Yusuf, one — and watch them grow up in a more compassionate community, where they aren’t a minority. Experiencing hate at some point in their life won’t just be a given, they hope.

Sana and Will Saleh, of Toronto, plan to move their family to Malaysia in the fall.
The Saleh family on YouTube: 1.3M subscribers, nearly 1B views

The Salehs are well-known YouTubers, amassing 1.3 million subscribers, who frequently vlog about their day-to-day lives. When, in December, they published a video sharing their decision to move and why, the post quickly accumulated thousands of comments and views. Four months in, that video has 771,000 views and 12,400 comments. Their 414 videos on the platform have garnered more than 920 million views cumulatively.

While many were in support and understanding of their choice, there was – and still is – an incredible number of abusive comments telling the family to “never come back,” “good riddance,” and “take your people with you!” While some might say that’s just a few bad apples, if you ask the Salehs, it’s par for the course living in Canada. Those claims of Canadians being the nicest people in the world? That’s not the reception everyone is privileged enough to experience.


Sana and Will Saleh were born and raised in Okanagan, British Columbia, and moved to Toronto in 2019. Will had a gig as an engineer in the aviation industry, but was let go, along with many colleagues, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. That's when the pair decided to give content creation a go, quickly becoming popular YouTubers — a rare feat for a Muslim family on the platform.

It helped, too, that they felt more “at home” in Ontario than in B.C., particularly with more ethnic and halal food options, more people who looked like Sana and their children, (Will, a Canadian with a European background, converted to Islam) and who shared their culture. But eventually, they felt out of place and more like strangers.
Islamophobia on the rise in Canada: 1,300% more hate incidents

According to the National Council of Canadian Muslims, there has been a staggering 1,300-per-cent rise in hate incidents since October 7, when the conflict began, with most happening in densely populated areas in Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec. A Senate report released in November (the first of its kind) found that Muslim women have become the “primary targets when it comes to violence and intimidation” because they are easy to recognize thanks to their traditional clothing, which might include a hijab, for example. Many have been scared to leave their homes, go to work, school, or the grocery store.

According to the 2023 Senate report, “Muslims in Canada feel like they are under attack. The psychological impact of constant fear and vigilance is a heavy burden. Survivors of violent Islamophobia live with the trauma of their direct experience, while countless others live with vicarious trauma brought on by justified fear that their communities are not safe.” It goes on to call for “urgent action to reverse the alarming trajectory of Islamophobia in Canada.”

Sana and Will Saleh, of Toronto, plan to move their family to Malaysia in the fall.
The Salehs: Is it goodbye forever?

Still, the Salehs' advice to future immigrants intent on building a life in Canada is to try before you buy. Will explains: “We would say to give it a shot before committing to it. We know many people are moving to Canada and regretting it because the cost of living has skyrocketed and it’s no longer liveable or a desirable place to be, at least not like it used to be.”

"When we moved to Ontario we did not know a single person in the province," Sana recalls. "We had to start from scratch, making friends and colleagues."

As for whether they’d ever come back? The Salehs keep it simple: “We personally do not see ourselves having a future in Canada anymore.”

Onto greener pastures.

Canadian Blood Services apologizes to the 2SLGBTQ+ community for donation ban

CBC
Fri, May 10, 2024 

In 2021 Canadian Blood Services recommended an end to the ban on sexually active gay men donating blood in a submission to Health Canada. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press - image credit)


Canadian Blood Services is apologizing to the 2SLGBTQ+ community for its "harmful" former policies that for decades prevented men who have sex with men from donating blood.

The not-for-profit delivered the apology in person to members of the community at its headquarters in Ottawa on Friday morning.

For decades the Canadian Blood Services, which oversees blood donations and distribution in every province and territory except Quebec, prevented men who have sex with men, and some trans people, from donating blood unless they had been celibate for a period of time.

"The policy was put in place with the intent to protect patient safety after the Canadian blood system crisis of the 1980s. We recognize that for many years the same policy reinforced a harmful public perception that someone's blood is somehow less safe because of their sexual orientation," said Dr. Graham Sher, chief executive officer of Canadian Blood Services, in a news release.

"We regret that this policy contributed to discrimination, homophobia, transphobia and HIV stigma within society."

Canada introduced a lifetime blood donation ban for gay men in 1992. The policy was later changed to prevent men who have sex with men from donating blood for five years after being sexually active. That was later lowered to one year and then to three months.

Despite pushback from the 2SLGBTQ+ community, Canadian Blood Services continued to argue the deferment period was necessary because HIV is more prevalent among men who have sex with men.

After years of pressure, the charitable organization recommended overturning that restriction in 2021, pointing to research it had conducted, as well as evidence from abroad, showing the change would pose no threat to the blood supply. The new policy officially took effect in 2022 following approval from Health Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in the 2015 election to eliminate the ban, which he called "discriminatory and wrong."

Sher said he hopes the apology will help mend relationships with individuals and communities who were affected by the former policy.

Michael Kwag, a member of Canadian Blood Services' 2SLGBTQIA+ advisory committee, called it a "historic moment."

"Addressing past harms is important," he said. "There is still work to be done but I am encouraged knowing that progress is happening in a collaborative way."

New policy focuses on high-risk behaviour

Canadian Blood Services' new screening policies focus on high-risk behaviour among all donors — such as having multiple sexual partners.

Instead of being asked about gender or sexuality, potential donors are screened on higher-risk sexual behaviour, such as anal sex. A prospective donor who has had anal sex has to wait three months after that activity before donating blood.

Kwag and Sher are holding a news conference to discuss the apology at 1 p.m. ET.

Earlier this week, Health Canada changed its longstanding policy preventing gay and bisexual men from donating to sperm banks in Canada.

The regulator's more inclusive approach replaces screening questions about men who have sex with men in the previous three months with gender-neutral questions about sexual behaviour with a new partner or multiple partners over the same time period.

Before the amendment, male sperm donors were asked if they had sex with men, while egg donors were asked if they'd had sex with men who have sex with men.